Systems and methods for determining user actions

ABSTRACT

A system tracks user actions associated with advertisements. The system may receive information in response to a user action. The system may then determine whether the action performed by the user resulted from an advertisement.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of and claims priority to U.S.patent application Ser. No. 10/813,356, entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODSFOR DETERMINING USER ACTIONS,” filed Mar. 31, 2004, which is itself acontinuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/653,899,entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING USER ACTIONS,” filed Sep.4, 2003, the disclosures of each of which is incorporated herein byreference in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the presentinvention relate generally to determining user actions and, moreparticularly, to determining user actions associated with advertising.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Networks, such as the Internet, have become an increasingly importantpart of our everyday lives. Millions of people now access the Interneton a daily basis to shop for goods and services and obtain informationof interest.

For example, suppose an individual wishes to purchase a printer via theInternet. The individual accesses the Internet and types in a vendor'sInternet address. The individual may then browse the vendor's availableproducts to determine whether the vendor has the desired product.

If the individual does not know which vendors sell printers, theindividual may access a web site associated with a search engine. Theindividual may input the generic term “printer” into the search engineto attempt to locate a vendor that sells printers. Using a search enginein this manner to locate individual web sites that offer the desiredproduct or service often results in a list of hundreds or even thousandsof “hits,” where each hit may correspond to a web page that relates tothe search term.

In addition, the search engine may provide advertisements relating tovarious products or services. For example, when a query associated withprinters is received, the search engine may output advertisements fromcompanies that purchase advertising relating to printers, along with theother hits. The search engine provider may charge each company apredetermined fee each time that company's advertisement is displayed toa user. A more recent trend is to charge companies a fee each time theiradvertisement is selected by a user (i.e., each time a user clicks onthe displayed advertisement). Not all clicks, however, result in desireduser actions or “conversions.” A conversion may be defined by theadvertiser and may represent, for example, a purchase, a registration, apage-view, etc.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with one aspect consistent with the principles of theinvention, a method for tracking user actions is provided. The methodmay include receiving information in response to a user action, wherethe information indicates that the user performed a conversion. Themethod may also include determining whether the conversion resulted froman advertisement provided by a first entity.

According to another aspect, a system including a memory to storeinstructions and a processor to execute the instructions in the memoryis provided. The processor may provide a user interface including anoption to track user actions associated with an ad provider that is notaffiliated with the system. The processor may also receive a selectionfrom an advertiser and enable tracking of user actions associated withthe ad provider.

According to a further aspect, a method for tracking user actionsincludes receiving an ad selection from a user, generating a cookie inresponse to the ad selection and transmitting the cookie to the user.The method also includes receiving information in response to a useraction, where the information indicates that the user performed aconversion associated with an advertiser. The method further includesdetermining whether the conversion was associated with an ad.

According to yet another aspect, a system including a memory to storeinstructions and at least one processor to execute the instructions inthe memory is provided. The processor may track users' actionsassociated with a first ad provider. The processor may also track users'actions associated with a second ad provider, where the first adprovider is not affiliated with the second ad provider.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate an embodiment of the inventionand, together with the description, explain the invention. In thedrawings,

FIG. 1 is an exemplary diagram of a network in which systems and methodsconsistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented;

FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram of a server of FIG. 1 according to animplementation consistent with the principles of the invention;

FIG. 3 is an exemplary functional block diagram of a portion of a serverof FIG. 1 according to an implementation consistent with the principlesof the invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing associatedwith enabling conversion tracking according to an implementationconsistent with the principles of the invention;

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing associatedwith conversion tracking according to an implementation consistent withthe principles of the invention;

FIG. 6 flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing for enablingexternal conversion tracking according to an implementation consistentwith the principles of the invention;

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing associatedwith external conversion tracking according to an implementationconsistent with the principles of the invention; and

FIGS. 8-17 illustrate exemplary user interface screens associated withimplementations consistent with the principles of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description of implementations consistent withthe present invention refers to the accompanying drawings. The samereference numbers in different drawings may identify the same or similarelements. Also, the following detailed description does not limit theinvention.

Overview

Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention mayperform conversion tracking associated with advertisers. The term“conversion,” as used herein, may be defined by the advertiser and mayrepresent a particular user action including, for example, a purchase, aregistration, a sign-up, a page-view, a download, etc. Inimplementations consistent with the invention, “internal conversions”and “external conversions” may be tracked. The phrase “internalconversion,” as used herein, may refer to, for example, a conversionassociated with ads provided by the same entity that performs theconversion tracking. In other words, the same entity performs both theproviding of ads and the conversion tracking. The phrase “externalconversion,” as used herein, may refer to a conversion resulting fromads provided by other entities/networks that are not affiliated with orcontrolled by the entity that performs the conversion tracking.

Advertisers, therefore, may be able to use a single entity to trackconversions across all of the ad providers/networks they use todistribute their ads. Advertisers may also compare conversioninformation for the same or similar ads provided by a number ofdifferent ad providers/networks.

Exemplary Network Configuration

FIG. 1 is an exemplary diagram of a network 100 in which systems andmethods consistent with the principles of the invention may beimplemented. Network 100 may include clients 110, servers 120, 125 and140 and advertiser 130 connected via network 150. Clients 110, server120, server 125, advertiser 130 and server 140 may connect to network150 via wired, wireless, or optical connections. Network 150 may includea local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a telephonenetwork, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), anintranet, the Internet, a different type of network, or a combination ofnetworks. Two clients 110, one server 120, one advertiser 130 and oneserver 140 have been illustrated in FIG. 1 for simplicity. In practice,there may be more or fewer clients, servers and advertisers. Also, insome instances, a client may perform the functions of a server and aserver may perform the functions of a client. Additionally, inalternative implementations, the functions performed by one server maybe combined with the functions performed by another server. For example,server 120 may perform the functions of both servers 120 and 140, orvice versa.

Clients 110 may include devices, such as personal computers, lap topcomputers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless telephones,etc., threads or processes running on these devices, and/or objectsexecutable by these devices. Servers 120 and 125 may each include one ormore server devices, computer processors, threads, and/or objects thatoperate upon, search, maintain, and/or manage documents in a mannerconsistent with the principles of the invention. Servers 120 and 125 maybe associated with different search engine providers/networks. Forexample, server 120 may be associated with one search engine provider ornetwork and server 125 may be associated with a different search engineprovider or network.

Advertiser 130 may include one or more server devices/platforms thatprovide information, products and/or services to clients 110. Forexample, advertiser 130 may represent a vendor that sells goods/servicesover the Internet. Advertiser 130 may also pay for advertisingassociated with searches performed by server 120 and/or server 125.

For example, advertiser 130 may pay for advertising associated with oneor more keywords relating to server 120. When server 120 receives asearch query with the keyword(s), information associated with advertiser130 may be displayed to the user with the search results. Advertiser 130may also pay for advertising associated with one or more keywordsassociated with server 125. In a similar manner, when server 125receives a search query with the keyword(s), information associated withadvertiser 130 may be displayed to the user with the search results.Although the previous examples have been given in the context of searchqueries, it will be recognized that the present invention is not solimited. As just one example, information associated with advertiser 130may be provided to clients 110 in association with content (e.g.,documents) from server 120 or server 125 when the content is determinedto be related to the advertiser associated information, as described inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/375,900, entitled “ServingAdvertisements Based on Content,” filed Feb. 26, 2003, the entirecontents of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference.

Server 140, consistent with the present invention, may include one ormore server devices, computer processors, threads, and/or objects thattrack conversion information associated with clients 110 and advertiser130. In an exemplary implementation consistent with principles of theinvention, server 140 may include a conversion tracker 145 that tracksconversions associated with clients 110 accessing information fromadvertiser 130.

In an exemplary implementation described in detail below, it is assumedthat server 120 and server 140 are controlled by the same entity, suchas an ad provider. In this example, server 120 represents an “internal”entity or network with respect to server 140 and conversions/ad clicksassociated with server 120 represent internal conversions/ad clicks. Inthe example described below, it is also assumed that server 125represents an “external” entity or network with respect to server 140.Conversions/ad clicks associated with server 125, therefore, representexternal conversions/ad clicks.

Exemplary Server Architecture

FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram of a server of FIG. 1, which maycorrespond to one or more of servers 120, 125 and 140, according to animplementation consistent with the principles of the invention. Server120/125/140 may include a bus 210, a processor 220, a main memory 230, aread only memory (ROM) 240, a storage device 250, one or more inputdevices 260, one or more output devices 270, and a communicationinterface 280. Bus 210 may include a path that permits communicationamong the components of server 120/125/140.

Processor 220 may include any type of conventional processor ormicroprocessor that interprets and executes instructions. Main memory230 may include a random access memory (RAM) or another type of dynamicstorage device that stores information and instructions for execution byprocessor 220. ROM 240 may include a conventional ROM device or anothertype of static storage device that stores static information andinstructions for use by processor 220. Storage device 250 may include amagnetic and/or optical recording medium and its corresponding drive.

Input device 260 may include one or more conventional mechanisms thatpermit a user to input information to server 120/125/140, such as akeyboard, a mouse, a pen, voice recognition and/or biometric mechanisms,etc. Output device 270 may include one or more conventional mechanismsthat output information to the user, such as a display, a printer, aspeaker, etc. Communication interface 280 may include anytransceiver-like mechanism that enables server 120/125/140 tocommunicate with other devices and/or systems. For example,communication interface 280 may include mechanisms for communicatingwith another device or system via a network, such as network 150.

Servers 120 and 125, consistent with the principles of the invention,may perform searches based on inputs from clients 110. Server 140,consistent with the principles of the invention, may perform conversiontracking associated with clients 110 interacting with servers 120 and125 and advertiser 130. Servers 120/125/140 may perform these operationsin response to processor 220 executing software instructions containedin a computer-readable medium, such as memory 230. A computer-readablemedium may be defined as one or more memory devices and/or carrierwaves.

The software instructions may be read into memory 230 from anothercomputer-readable medium, such as data storage device 250, or fromanother device via communication interface 280. The softwareinstructions contained in memory 230 causes processor 220 to performprocesses that will be described later. Alternatively, hardwiredcircuitry may be used in place of or in combination with softwareinstructions to implement processes consistent with the principles ofthe invention. Thus, implementations consistent with the principles ofthe invention are not limited to any specific combination of hardwarecircuitry and software.

In addition, servers 120, 125 and 140 are each illustrated in FIG. 1 asbeing single devices. Each of servers 120, 125 and 140 may also beimplemented as a network of computer processors and/or servers.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary functional block diagram of a portion of server140 according to an implementation consistent with the principles of theinvention. The logical blocks illustrated in FIG. 3 may be implementedin software, hardware, or a combination of hardware and software. Inaddition, each of the functional blocks may represent one or morecomputer processors, threads, and/or objects that track and process useractions and generate conversion related information.

Conversion tracker 145 may be implemented in server 140 and may includea front end (FE) 310, an ad mixer 320 and a log processing module 330.FE 310 acts as the front end of conversion tracker 145 to receiveinformation associated with conversion tracking, such as ad clickinformation, and generate cookies, as described in more detail below.For example, FE 310 may set and parse hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)cookies associated with tracking user actions. Ad mixer 320 may receivead click information and return information regarding the ad click to FE310. Log processing module 330 may analyze ad click and conversioninformation and generate reports based on this information. It shouldalso be understood that in alternative implementations, the functionsperformed by one of the logical blocks in FIG. 3 may be performed byanother logical block. Further, in alternative implementations, a singlelogical block/processing device may perform the functions of conversiontracker 145.

Exemplary Processing

FIG. 4 is an exemplary flow diagram illustrating processing associatedwith enabling conversion tracking according to an implementationconsistent with the principles of the invention. The followingdescription focuses on one or more servers that provide searchingfunctions and paid advertisements. It will be appreciated that thetechniques described herein are equally applicable to any server(s) thatmay provide advertisements for which fees are charged when theadvertisements are selected by or presented to a user of a clientdevice, such as client 110 in FIG. 1, and indeed to any system in whichparticular user actions are to be determined. For example, thetechniques described herein are applicable to identifying user actionswith respect to traditional banner advertisements, advertisementstargeted based on the content or concepts in a document or page beingprovided to users, etc.

Processing may begin by an advertiser accessing server 120 (act 410).For example, advertiser 130 may connect to server 120 via network 150 byentering a uniform resource locator (URL) in a browser being executed byadvertiser 130. Alternatively, an entity associated with advertiser 130may connect to server 120 via a processing device/computer executing aconventional web browser. Server 120 may provide a user interface (UI)that includes a selection for advertisers that purchase advertisingrelated to keywords that may be input to the search engine executed byserver 120. For example, as discussed above, advertiser 130 mayrepresent an existing advertiser who has purchased one or morewords/terms associated with computer queries/searches. Purchasing thesewords/terms may enable advertiser 130 to be featured when a search queryentered by a user includes those words/terms. For example, advertiser130 may be featured by an ad (whether in the form of a banner ad, textad, pop-up or pop-under window, etc.) on a web page displayed to aclient 110.

Assume that advertiser 130 clicks on (i.e., selects) the advertiseroption. Server 120 may then provide a UI that includes a button/box thatmay be clicked or selected to enable conversion tracking for thatadvertiser (act 420). The conversion tracking option may allow anadvertiser to individually enable conversion tracking for each accountthat the particular advertiser controls. For example, advertiser 130 maycontrol multiple accounts. In this case, advertiser 130 may wish toenable conversion tracking for one or more of the accounts. Assume thatadvertiser 130 has a single account and enables conversion tracking forthat account (act 430). When conversion tracking is enabled, server 140will be able to track conversion rates with respect to ad clicks, adimpressions and other information, as described in more detail below.The term “ad impression” as used herein generally refers to the displayof an advertisement to a client 110.

After conversion tracking is enabled, server 120 may generate aconversion tracking identifier (ID) associated with each account thathas been selected for conversion tracking (act 440). The particularconversion tracking ID may be unique for each particular account. In theexample above in which advertiser 130 enabled conversion tracking for asingle account, server 120 may generate a single conversion tracking ID.In some implementations, the conversion tracking ID may correspond toadvertiser 130's account ID. This conversion tracking ID enables server120 to maintain privacy with respect to clients 110. For example, inimplementations consistent with the principles of the invention, theconversion tracking ID is included in a cookie path associated withtracking ad clicks, as described in more detail below. This may limitthe number of cookies being transmitted, thereby reducing privacyconcerns associated with some users. In other implementations, a singleconversion tracking ID may be used for all advertisers that have enabledconversion tracking or no conversion tracking ID may be used.

It should be noted that the conversion tracking ID may not affect thelevel of granularity at which reports may be generated. For example,even if a single conversion tracking ID was used for all advertisers inthe system, server 140 may still associate the ad click data withspecific advertisers, campaigns, creatives, etc. This is because thecookies may include additional information regarding the ad clicks, suchas advertiser specific information.

After conversion tracking is enabled and a conversion tracking ID hasbeen assigned, server 120 generates a snippet, e.g., a piece of softwarecode, that may be provided to advertiser 130 (act 450). In an exemplaryimplementation consistent with the present invention, the snippet may bea piece of hypertext markup language/JavaScript (HTML/JS) code thatallows clients 110 and/or advertiser 130 to pass information to server140, such as the value of a conversion and a label describing the typeof conversion (e.g., a purchase, a registration, a page view, adownload, etc.), after a conversion has occurred. In an exemplaryimplementation consistent with the present invention, the snippet may bean image request that is transmitted to server 140 after a conversionhas occurred. Alternatively, the snippet may be a text request. Anexample of such an HTML snippet may be as follows:

<imgsrc=“http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/GHSnx87543x/conversion?value=123&label=“Purchase”&format=120×60>

In this example, “googleadservices.com” represents server 140 andGHSnx87543x represents the conversion tracking ID assigned to theconversion tracking enabled account associated with advertiser 130. Theconversion tracking ID included in the snippet may be used to determinewhether client 110 will send a cookie to server 140 after a conversionoccurs, as described in more detail below. “Value” and “label” mayrepresent optional parameters that can be dynamically generated andappended to the HTML image request. The value parameter may represent anadvertiser defined unit or value associated with a conversion specifiedin any units (e.g., dollars). If a particular advertiser has the sameunit or value for each conversion, server 120 may include the actualunit/value in the snippet. For example, if each conversion is worth $10to advertiser 130, the value field may specify the value of ten dollars.The label parameter may be a free form text label that can be assignedto differentiate types of conversions that may be used in a final report(e.g., “purchase,” “registration,” “mailing list signup,” “page view,”“download,” etc.). The set of available labels may be predefined and anyrequests not included within the predefined list may be marked as anUnknownLabelType. The label parameter may also be set dynamically, perpage, to advertiser specific custom labels. The format parameter definesthe size of the post conversion page image that will be returned toadvertiser 130 when a conversion is achieved, as described in moredetail below.

Server 120 may also provide a JS wrapper and instructions to advertiser130 that facilitate setting the value and label parameters and pastingthe snippet into the appropriate page. For example, server 120 mayprovide a number of snippets that may be pasted into a number ofadvertiser pages. The JS wrapper may facilitate setting the values andlabels in each snippet based on the particular item/product associatedwith the conversion. For example, if advertiser 130 sells only threeproducts having prices of $50, $100 and $200, server 120 may providethree snippets and advertiser 130 may set the value in each snippet tothe values $50, $100 and $200, respectively. Alternatively, server 120may set the values in each snippet and also include the appropriatelabel for each snippet.

After server 120 provides advertiser 130 with the HTML/JS snippet(s),along with instructions associated with the snippet, advertiser 130 maypaste the snippet(s) in the appropriate post conversion page(s) onadvertiser 130's web site (act 460). As described previously, eachadvertiser may define what acts are considered conversions. When aclient 110 performs such a predefined act, a conversion has taken place.For example, a purchase, a registration, a page view, a sign-up, adownload, etc., may be considered a conversion. In each case, apost-conversion page provided by advertiser 130 may be displayed toclient 110. For example, in the case of a purchase, advertiser 130 mayprovide a web page to client 110 after client 110 has transmitted acredit card number to advertiser 130 for purchasing a particularproduct. When advertiser 130 receives the credit card information, thepurchase has been completed and advertiser 130 may provide a page thatstates “Your purchase has been completed. Your total charges are X.”Such a page may represent a post-conversion page.

After advertiser 130 pastes the HTML/JS snippet(s) into the appropriatepost conversion page(s), conversion tracking is enabled for advertiser130. The process for conversion tracking may then commence in a mannerthat is transparent with respect to advertiser 130.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing associatedwith conversion tracking according to an implementation consistent withthe principles of the invention. The processing described below uses theexample of conversion tracking associated with ads based on searchqueries. However, as discussed above, the techniques described hereinmay be used in any system in which particular user actions are to bedetermined/identified. Processing may begin with a client 110 accessingserver 120 via network 150 and receiving a UI for entering a searchquery. Assume that the user enters a search query and transmits thesearch query to server 120. Server 120 receives the search query,executes the search and generates a list of search results.

Server 120 may also identify advertiser(s) based on the search query(act 510). For example, server 120 may store advertiser information in amemory, such as storage device 250 (FIG. 2). The advertiser informationmay include a database of keywords and corresponding advertisers (alongwith their URLs) who have purchased advertising associated with thekeywords. When server 120 receives a query, server 120 searches theadvertiser information to determine whether any advertiser has purchasedadvertising associated with one or more terms in the input query. Server120 may then identify the advertiser(s) associated with the input queryand the particular web site(s) associated with the respectiveadvertiser(s). In one implementation, server 120 may also generate aredirect URL for each identified advertiser that has enabled conversiontracking so that the URL points to server 140 (act 510). For example,server 120 may generate a redirect URL associated with a conversiontracking enabled advertiser, such as:

http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/adclick?adurl=http://www.advertiser.com/landingpage&sa=1

This redirect URL may point to googleadservices.com, which in thisexample, corresponds to server 140, and may indicate that the redirectis associated with an ad click on a page ad. The redirect URL may alsopoint to the advertiser's landing page or home page (i.e.,advertiser.com/landingpage). The presence of sa=1 in the exemplary URLabove may be used by log processing module 330 to recognize this URL isassociated with an ad click. Other information may also be included inthe redirect URL.

After generating the redirect URL(s) for each conversion trackingenabled advertiser associated with the search query, server 120transmits the search results and advertisement(s) to client 110 foroutput (e.g., visual display). Assume that a user, via client 110,performs an ad click on an ad associated with a conversion trackingenabled advertiser displayed on client 110. For example, assume that aweb site associated with advertiser 130 is provided on the web pagedisplayed on client 110 and that advertiser 130 has enabled conversiontracking. Further assume that the user, via client 110, clicks on thedisplayed ad associated with advertiser 130.

After client 110 selects the ad associated with advertiser 130, an adclick request is sent to server 140 as a result of the redirect URLgenerated at act 510 (act 520). For example, server 140 may receive anad click HTTP request, such as:

http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/adclick?url=http://www.advertiser.com/landingpage&sa=1

As discussed above, the redirect URL points to googleadservices.com,which in this example, corresponds to server 140. Conversion tracker 145in server 140 receives the ad click request and directs client 110 toadvertiser's 130 home page or landing page, which in this example may behttp://www.advertiser.com/landing page. In an exemplary implementation,FE 310 may also store or log the ad click request and forward the adclick request to ad mixer 320. In some implementations consistent withthe present invention, FE 310 may also redirect the request back toitself by, for example, rewriting sa=1 to sa=L. This may ensure thatclicks by web crawlers are not counted in the number of ad clicksassociated with an advertiser. For example, automated crawling softwarethat does not follow HTTP redirects will never make a request for theURL where the field sa=1 has been rewritten to sa=L. This preventsspamming by automated crawlers that lack this redirect followingfeature.

Ad mixer 320 receives the ad click request and may log the ad clickrequest. Ad mixer 320 and/or FE 310, may also analyze the ad clickrequest to determine whether a cookie should be generated in response tothe ad click (act 530). For example, cookies may be set for conversiontracking enabled advertisers. In the example above, since conversiontracking is enabled for advertiser 130, ad mixer 320 and/or FE 310 maydetermine that a cookie should be set. Ad mixer 320 may also identifythe conversion tracking ID associated with advertiser 130, which will beincluded in the cookie path. In an exemplary implementation consistentwith present invention, including the conversion tracking ID in thecookie path limits the number of cookies that will be sent to server140, as described in more detail below.

Ad mixer 320 may further identify the approximate time that the ad clickoccurred and generate an ad click time stamp (TS). The TS may be aglobally unique identifier that includes the time that ad mixer 320received the ad click request. The TS may also include otherinformation, such as server IP address/host processor ID, etc., toensure that the TS is globally unique. Ad mixer 320 may then generate amessage including the TS, a conversion tracking ID and a Booleanindicating whether a cookie should be set. If the ad click was notassociated with a conversion tracking enabled advertiser, the Booleanwill indicate that no cookie should be generated. Ad mixer 320 mayforward this message to FE 310.

FE 310 receives the message from ad mixer 320 and determines whether acookie is to be set. The cookie may represent a conversion trackingcookie associated with tracking conversions for an advertiser. Assumethat the information from ad mixer 320 indicates that a cookie is to beset, FE 310 may then generate the conversion tracking cookie (act 530).In an exemplary implementation, the conversion tracking cookie may alsoinclude a click string (CS). The CS may represent the particular adclick(s) or action(s) performed by the user and may be used to track theuser's actions. The conversion tracking cookie may also include the adclick TS and/or an expiration date associated with the cookie. Theconversion tracking cookie's path may also include the conversiontracking ID of the conversion tracking enabled advertiser. FE 310 maysend the cookie to client 110 along with the redirect URL pointing toadvertiser 130's site (act 530). For example, server 140 may send anHTTP message to client 110 that includes the following information:

Set-Cookie:CONVERSION=CS=A6yIzdSDw-4-iX8pj0IqkRPRxTzfA1Kp6FA5xKXgACApTBAsmMEABCgpF:TS=1055812564745609;path=/pagead/conversion/GHSnx87543/; domain=.googleadservices.com;expires=Tue, 17 Jun. 2003 01:02:03 GMT

In the example above, the message indicates that a cookie identified asCONVERSION is to be set and that the cookie includes a CS. The messagealso includes a TS and an expiration date associated with the cookie.For example, the cookie may be set to expire 30 days from the time thecookie was created. This prevents old cookies from being used toincorrectly identify later conversions. Shorter or longer cookieexpiration periods may also be used. In other implementations, thecookie may just include the TS identifying when the cookie was created.In this case, server 140 may determine whether the cookie has expiredbased on the TS. In still other implementations, the cookie may notinclude an expiration date. In further implementations, the cookie maybe a session cookie that may expire when the client's 110 browsercloses. In further implementations, client 110 may automatically deletethe cookie after a predetermined period of time.

The exemplary message above also includes a path for the cookie and adomain. The domain, googleadservices.com, corresponds to server 140 inthis example. The cookie path in the example above is:pagead/conversion/GHSnx87543/. The field GHSnx87543 in the cookie pathmay represent the conversion tracking ID for advertiser 130. Byincluding the conversion tracking ID in the cookie path, this cookiewill not be forwarded to server 140 when ad clicks associated with otheradvertisers are performed. For example, in one implementation consistentwith the present invention, client 110 will only send a cookieassociated with a particular advertiser when client 110 performs whatthat particular conversion tracking enabled advertiser pre-defined to bea conversion, as described in more detail below. When client 110 clickson impressions or performs conversions not associated with advertisersthat have not enabled conversion tracking, no cookies will be sent byclient 110. Reducing the number of times cookies are sent reduces theability of server 140 to track user actions. This may reduce privacyconcerns of privacy sensitive users. In other implementations consistentwith the present invention in which privacy concerns are not as great,client 110 may send cookies associated with conversion tracking enabledadvertisers when no conversions for those advertisers have occurred. Inthis manner, server 140 may identify more actions performed by users.

Client 110 receives the message indicating that the cookie is to be setand redirect URL from server 140. Client 110 may store the cookie anduse the redirect URL to access advertiser 130's web site. Thereafter,additional user actions (e.g., conversions) associated with advertiser130 may be transmitted to server 140 via the cookie.

Assume that client 110 performs an act defined by advertiser 130 to be aconversion for that particular advertiser (act 540). In this case, whenclient 110 performs the conversion, advertiser 130 downloads a postconversion page to client 110. As discussed above with respect to FIG.4, the post conversion page includes the snippet (e.g., an HTML imagerequest) provided to advertiser 130. As discussed above, in oneimplementation, the snippet may include an image request. In otherimplementations, the snippet may include a text request. Advertiser 130downloads the post conversion page to client 110. When client 110receives and displays the post conversion page, client 110 executes thesnippet. The snippet, as described previously with respect to FIG. 4,may include a conversion tracking ID associated with advertiser 130.Assuming that the snippet include an image request, when the snippet isexecuted, client 110 sends the image request to server 140. That is,client 110 executes the snippet and sends a post conversion imagerequest to server 140. For example, the post conversion HTTP imagerequest may include the following information:

http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/GHSnx87543x/?value=123&label=Purchase&format=120×60.

This image request includes information indicating that a conversionoccurred, the conversion tracking ID, a value, a label and a format forthe image.

Client 110 may also compare the conversion tracking ID included in thesnippet (GHSnx87543x in this example) with the conversion tracking ID inthe stored cookie's path (act 550). That is, client 110 compares theconversion tracking ID included in the snippet on advertiser 130's postconversion page with the conversion tracking ID associated with thecookie received at act 530. When the conversion tracking IDs match,client 110 transmits the cookie, along with the post conversion imagerequest, to server 140 (act 560). It should be understood that client110 may receive a number of cookies from server 140 when client 110performs ad clicks associated with various conversion tracking enabledadvertisers in a manner similar to that discussed above with respect toadvertiser 130. Therefore, client 110 may compare the conversiontracking ID in the post conversion snippet with the conversion trackingIDs included in the cookie path for each of the cookies stored on client110. When the conversion tracking ID in the snippet matches any one ofthe conversion tracking IDs in a cookie path of a stored cookie, theclient 110 will send that cookie to server 140. In some implementationsconsistent with the present invention, client 110 may also examine theTS, if a TS is included in the cookie, to determine whether to send thecookie to server 140. For example, if client 110 determines that thecookie has expired, client 110 may not send the cookie. Server 140,however, may also look at the TS, as described below.

Assuming that the conversion tracking 1D in the snippet matches thecookie associated with advertiser 130 (and optionally, the TS indicatesthat the cookie has not expired), client 110 sends the cookie foradvertiser 130 and the post conversion image request to server 140. Whenserver 140 receives the image request, conversion tracker 145 examinesthe request and determines whether the conversion resulted from a paidadvertisement (act 570). For example, server 140 may look to see whetherthe cookie with the unique conversion tracking ID associated withadvertiser 130 has been received with (or in close time proximity to)the image request. The cookie may also include the CS as part of thecookie payload and the CS may identify the particular ad click(s) and/oraction(s) performed by client 110. The cookie may also contain otherdata that may be used to correlate the click event with the conversion,e.g., when the click happened, the ad that was clicked on, etc.

If conversion tracker 145 does not find such a cookie included with theimage request, FE 310 may determine that the conversion did not resultfrom a paid advertisement. If FE 310 has received such a cookie with theimage request, FE 310 may determine whether the cookie has expired basedon the expiration date or TS information included with the cookie.Server 140 may store information associated with the conversion, such asthe value, type, etc. (act 580). FE 310 may also return an image toclient 110 that states, for example, “Thank you for shopping at a Googleadvertiser.” Client 110 may then paste this image into the postconversion page displayed on client 110. Providing this image in thepost conversion page allows clients 110 to be aware that some of theiractions are being tracked. If FE 310 determines that the conversion didnot result from a paid ad or that the cookie associated with the paid adhad expired, server 140 may not store the conversion information. Server140 may also return a blank image or no image and client 110 will notreceive any additional message on the post conversion page.

FE 310 may also log the received image request into a log, such as abinary formatted log. FE 310 may further send a message to ad mixer 320indicating that the conversion occurred. Ad mixer 320 may also log theconversion event in an ad conversion log. The ad conversion log mayinclude records, such as, a number of conversion events, a valueassociated with each conversion event, a label associated with eachconversion event, a time associated with each conversion event, thesearch engine or ad network associated with each conversion event, etc.Log processing module 330 may access the ad conversion log and use thead conversion data to populate a conversion events database. Logprocessing module 330 may then generate reports based on information inthe conversion events database (act 590).

For example, log processing module 330 may generate a conversion ratiofor a particular advertiser, such as advertiser 130. The conversionratio may be based on the number of times a displayed ad associated withan advertiser 130 was clicked at least once divided by the number ofconversions that resulted from the ad. By generating the conversionratio, both advertisers and search engine providers may determine theeffectiveness of the paid ads.

More detailed analysis of advertisements can also be made. For example,log processing module 330 may determine a total value of all conversionsover a period of time for a particular advertiser that resulted fromads, a value per click, etc. Log processing module 330 may alsodetermine a conversion ratio based on where the ad is displayed. Thatis, server 140 may store information indicating whether the paid ad wasdisplayed at the top of a web page, as opposed to another location, suchas the side of the web page, or the position of the ad in a ranked list.Log processing module 330 may then analyze a conversion ratio withrespect to the location of the displayed ad.

Cross Network Conversion Tracking

As described above, conversion tracker 145 may track conversionsassociated with advertising purchased by advertiser 130. In the exampledescribed above, it is assumed that conversion tracker 145 is associatedwith and/or controlled by the same entity that controls server 120. Forexample, server 120 may represent a search engine provider that performscomputer searches and provides ads along with the search results andconversion tracker 145 may be controlled or owned by the same entity asthe search engine executed by server 120. This enables conversiontracker 145 to track internal conversions/ad clicks.

Conversion tracker 145, as described briefly above, may also be used totrack conversions associated with other entities/networks. For example,conversion tracker 145 may be used to track external conversions/clicks.For example, in one implementation, servers 120 and 125 may beassociated with competing search engine providers and server 125 mayrepresent an external entity with respect to server 120 and conversiontracker 145. Therefore, conversion tracker 145 may be able to trackconversions for any number of ad providers/networks, regardless ofwhether the networks are directly affiliated or controlled by the entityperforming the conversion tracking. This enables conversion tracker 145to be able to compare conversions and conversion ratios across differentad providers/networks.

The processing performed by conversion tracker 145 with respect totracking external conversions may differ from the processing associatedwith tracking internal conversions. For example, many pieces ofinformation associated with internal clicks (e.g., clicks associatedwith ads provided by server 120) may not exist for external clicks, suchas various click strings, delivery periods, etc. However, conversiontracker 145 may still track conversions and include relevant informationfor reports to the advertisers, as described in more detail below.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing for enablingexternal conversion tracking according to an implementation consistentwith the principles of the invention. Similar to the discussion abovewith respect to FIG. 4, the following description focuses on one or moreservers that provide searching functions and paid advertisements. Itwill be appreciated that the techniques described herein are equallyapplicable to any server(s) that may provide ads for which fees arecharged when the ads are selected by or presented to a user of a clientdevice, such as client 110 in FIG. 1, and indeed to any system in whichparticular user actions are to be determined. For example, thetechniques described herein are applicable to identifying user actionswith respect to traditional banner ads, ads targeted based on thecontent or concepts in a document or page being provided to users, etc.

Processing may begin by an advertiser, such as advertiser 130, accessingserver 120. For example, advertiser 130 or an entity associated withadvertiser 130 may connect to server 120 via network 150 by entering anaddress associated with server 120. Assume that advertiser 130 haspurchased advertising related to keywords that may be provided to thesearch engine executed by server 125. For example, similar to thediscussion above with respect to server 120, advertiser 130 may havepurchased one or more words/terms associated with computerqueries/searches performed by server 125. Purchasing these words/termsmay enable advertiser 130 to be featured when a search query entered bya user into a search engine executed by server 125 includes thosewords/terms. For example, advertiser 130 may be featured by an ad(whether in the form of a banner ad, text ad, pop-up or pop-underwindow, etc.) on a web page provided by server 125 for display to aclient 110.

Further assume that advertiser 130 would like to enable conversiontracking for the ads provided by server 125 to various clients 110. Forexample, advertiser 130 may wish to track conversion rates with respectto ad clicks, ad impressions and other information provided by server125 to clients 110. Similar to the discussion above with respect to FIG.4, a conversion tracking option may be provided to advertiser 130 (act610). For example, server 120 may include a conversion tracking userinterface (UI) that may be provided to advertiser 130. The conversiontracking UI may include an “External Network,” link/icon. The ExternalNetwork link/icon may include text that indicates that selecting thislink/icon indicates that advertiser 130 would like to track conversionson an external network.

Assume that advertiser 130 selects the External Network link/icon.Server 120 may then provide a list of networks from which advertiser 130can choose. For example, the list of networks may correspond to networksfrom which advertiser 130 would most likely purchase advertising, suchas other search engine providers. The list may also include an “Other”selection in which advertiser 130 can enter the appropriate information,such as a name or domain name, regarding the particular network(s) onwhich conversion tracking is desired.

If necessary, a conversion tracking ID for advertiser 130 may then begenerated (act 610). For example, advertiser 130 may also purchase adsfor searches performed via server 120. If advertiser 130 has enabledconversion tracking for internal ads (i.e., ads provided by server 120),advertiser 130 already has a conversion tracking ID, as described abovewith respect to FIG. 4. In this case, that same conversion tracking IDmay be used to track external conversions.

Alternatively, if advertiser 130 has not already been assigned aconversion tracking ID, server 120 may generate a conversion tracking IDfor advertiser 130 in a similar manner as that described above withrespect to FIG. 4. As discussed above, the conversion tracking ID maynot affect the level of granularity at which reports may be generated.For example, even if a single conversion tracking ID is used for alladvertisers in the system, conversion tracker 145 may still associatethe ad click data with specific advertisers, campaigns, creatives, etc.,since the cookies received from clients 110 may include additionalinformation regarding the ad clicks, as described in more detail below.

Server 120 may assign an ad group ID to a particular ad or ad campaignassociated with the external advertisements of advertiser 130. Server120 may also provide a UI to allow advertiser 130 to provide or editdata corresponding to the particular ad or ad creative assigned to aparticular ad group. The term “ad creative” as used herein refers to theactual advertisement output to clients 110 along with the searchresults. The ad creative may include text associated with the ad and aURL hyperlink to a web page of the advertiser. The UI provided by server120 may allow advertiser 130 to provide keywords associated with an adcreative, a cost-per-click (CPC) value, etc. The UI may also requestthat advertiser 130 provide a destination URL for a particular ad.

The destination URL may represent a particular web page, also referredto herein as a landing page, that advertiser 130 would like displayedwhen a particular ad is selected. For example, suppose that advertiser130 wants to display a particular document, such as a web page, when anad is selected. In this case, advertiser 130 may embed a URL in the ad,such as http://www.smartadvertiser.com, representing the desired landingpage associated with the ad. In this example, when the ad is selected byclient 110, client 110's browser is redirected towww.smartadvertiser.com. Therefore, in this example, the destinationURL, www.smart advertiser.com, may be provided (act 620). Advertiser 130may enter this destination URL in the UI and transmit the information toserver 120.

Assume that advertiser 130 has selected a particular external network orprovided the appropriate information to enable conversion tracking forthe external network. Further assume that advertiser 130 has providedthe destination URL and other pertinent information via the UI. Atracking URL may then be generated (act 620). The tracking URL may pointto server 140 and include the destination URL provided by advertiser130. For instance, in the example above, server 120 may generate thefollowing tracking URL:

http://www.googleadverservices.com/pagead/adclick?clickinfo=<Base64EncodedData>&url=http %3A//www.smartadvertiser.com.

Alternatively, server 120 may instruct advertiser 130 to change thedestination URL in its ad to point to server 140 (e.g., includegoogleadservices.com in the header of the destination URL). In eithercase, the tracking URL includes the address corresponding to conversiontracker 145 (i.e., www.googleadservices.com. in this example). Thetracking URL may also include a click information field and thedestination URL (i.e., www.smartadvertiser.com, in this example).

After the tracking URL is generated, server 120 may instruct advertiser130 to change the destination URL in its ad to the tracking URL. Thismay involve advertiser 130 modifying information provided to otherentities, such as the entity executing the search engine on server 125.This ensures that the other entities will provide the tracking URL whenproviding an ad for output to a client 110. In this manner, when the adis subsequently clicked by a client 110, the tracking URL forwards thead click to server 140, as described in more detail below.

Server 120 and conversion tracker 145, consistent with principles of theinvention, may also support dynamic tracking URLs with network-specificsyntax and keyword expansion. For example, if advertiser 130 provides adestination URL for an ad on server 120, such as:http://mysite.com/myarg={KEYWORD}, server 120 may substitute the keywordfield with the keywords provided for each targeting criteria. Forinstance, if the actual search term input by client 110 is “car,” theresulting URL that client 110's browser goes to would be:http://mysite.com/myarg=car. In other words, the actual search term getssubstituted for the KEYWORD field.

In a similar manner, server 120 may also store various auto-expansionfeatures, such as keyword expansion, for a number of commonly usedexternal ad providers/networks. Server 120 may place the knownauto-expansion information in the tracking URLs, which will be providedto the advertisers. The external networks supporting auto-expansion willthen perform their particular auto-expansion in a similar manner asdiscussed above with respect to server 120. In the case that theparticular network selected via the conversion tracking UI is “Other,”server 120 may generate a static tracking URL, since server 120 may notbe aware of the particular auto-expansion features these “Other”networks support.

To further illustrate the use of keyword expansion, suppose that a payper click (PPC) network supports keyword expansion by substituting$KEYWORD with the actual search words that resulted in the displaying ofthe ad. In this example, assume that advertiser 130 accesses server 120,selects external conversion tracking and provides information for a newcreative for external conversion tracking. Further assume thatadvertiser 130 chooses “PPC Network 1” from a list of networks andprovides a destination URL, such as: http://www.advertiser.com/snakeoil.Assume that PPC Network 1 supports automatic keyword expansion and PPCexpansion with a particular syntax known by server 120. Server 120 maythen generate the following tracking URL:

http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/adclick?clickinfo=<base64EncodedData>&kw=$KEYWORD&cpc=$CPC&url=http %3A//www.advertiser.com/snakeoil, where“kw” represents the keyword field and “cpc” represents the cost perclick field.

If the destination URL provided by advertiser 130 includes $KEYWORD,server 120 recognizes that advertiser 130 would like to receive theclick-specific keywords with the conversion information. In this case,server 120 ensures that the particular ad network variables, such as thekw field and the cpc field are included in the tracking URL. This allowsthe external ad server (e.g., server 125) to expand the variable in the“kw=” parameter and in the “url=” parameter that will become the actualredirect URL to which clients 110 are directed. If the particular adnetwork does not allow multiple expansions of the same variable in thesame URL, server 120 may perform the expansion into advertiser 130'sredirect URL. This expansion may be performed on a per-network basis.

The tracking URL, whether dynamic or static, enables conversion tracker145 to track conversions on external networks, as described in moredetail below. The tracking URL, as described above, may include a clickinformation field field, a keyword field, a cpc field and a URL field.The click information field may include click-related information, suchas an ad group ID and information that may be used by conversion tracker145 to identify the particular ad. The ad group ID, as described above,may be unique for each advertiser 130 or advertiser campaign. Thekeyword field may include optional keywords that are matched with aquery. The keywords may be used to display clicks and conversions basedon the keyword(s). The CPC field may include optional cost per clickinformation provided by the ad network. Alternatively, the CPC field mayinclude a static advertiser specified CPC, such as an average CPC value.This CPC value may be provided to advertiser 130 via a report, asdescribed in more detail below. The URL field may include thedestination URL associated with advertiser 130, such as the page towhich client 110 is redirected when the user selects the ad. This URL,as described above, may contain variables to be expanded by the adserver (e.g., server 125).

The tracking URL, as described above, may be provided by advertiser 130to the ad network for which they would like to perform conversiontracking. In other implementations, server 120 may automatically up-loadthe tracking URL to various ad networks. In either case, the ad networkproviding the ad to clients is aware of the tracking URL and embeds thetracking URL in the ad output to clients 110.

After conversion tracking is enabled and a tracking URL has beengenerated, a snippet may be provided, if necessary, to advertiser 130(act 630). For example, if advertiser 130 has already enabled conversiontracking for the same ads provided by server 120 that advertiser 130wishes to conversion track via server 125, the appropriate snippet(s)will already have been provided to advertiser 130, as described abovewith respect to FIG. 4. In this case, acts 630 and 640, described below,may be bypassed since the snippet(s) will have already been inserted inthe appropriate ad(s) and these same snippet(s) may be used for externalconversion tracking.

In the event that advertiser 130 has not enabled internal conversiontracking for the desired ad(s), server 120 may generate a snippet thatallows clients 110 and/or advertiser 130 to pass information toconversion tracker 145 in a manner similar to that described above withrespect to FIG. 4. For example, the snippet may include a pointer toconversion tracker 145 (e.g., googleadservices.com). The snippet mayalso include the conversion tracking ID assigned to advertiser 130. Thesnippet may further include “value” and “label” parameters that can bedynamically generated and appended to a conversion image/text request.The value parameter may represent an advertiser defined unit or valueassociated with a conversion specified in any units (e.g., dollars). Thelabel parameter may be a free form text label that can be assigned todifferentiate types of conversions that may be used in a final report(e.g., “purchase,” “registration,” “mailing list signup,” “page view,”“download,” etc.). The set of available labels may be predefined and anyrequests not included within the predefined list may be marked as anunknown label type. The label parameter may also be set dynamically, perpage, to advertiser specific custom labels. The format parameter definesthe size of the post conversion page image that may be returned toclient 110 when a conversion is achieved. In alternativeimplementations, no image may be returned after a conversion occurs ortext may be returned.

Server 120 may also provide a JS wrapper and instructions to advertiser130 that facilitate setting the value and label parameters and pastingthe snippet into the appropriate page in a similar manner as describedabove with respect to FIG. 4. For example, conversion tracker 145 mayprovide a number of snippets that may be pasted into a number ofadvertiser pages. The JS wrapper may facilitate setting the values andlabels in each snippet based on the particular item/product associatedwith the conversion. For example, as discussed above, if advertiser 130sells only three products having prices of $50, $100 and $200, server120 may provide three snippets and advertiser 130 may set the value ineach snippet to the values $50, $100 and $200, respectively.Alternatively, server 120 may set the values in each snippet and alsoinclude the appropriate label for each snippet, based on informationreceived from advertiser 130.

After advertiser 130 receives the snippet(s), along with instructionsassociated with the snippet(s), the snippet(s) may be pasted into theappropriate post conversion page(s) on advertiser 130's web site (act640). As described previously, each advertiser may define what acts areconsidered conversions. When a client 110 performs such a predefinedact, a conversion has taken place. For example, a purchase, aregistration, a page view, a sign-up, a download, etc., may beconsidered a conversion. In each case, a post-conversion page providedby advertiser 130 may be displayed to client 110. For example, asdescribed above, advertiser 130 may provide a web page to client 110after client 110 has transmitted a credit card number to advertiser 130for purchasing a particular product. When advertiser 130 receives thecredit card information, the purchase has been completed and advertiser130 may provide a page that states “Your purchase has been completed.Your total charges are X.” Such a page may represent a post-conversionpage.

After advertiser 130 pastes the snippet(s) into the appropriate postconversion page(s), external conversion tracking is enabled foradvertiser 130. The process for external conversion tracking may thencommence in a manner that is transparent with respect to advertiser 130.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary processing associatedwith external conversion tracking according to an implementationconsistent with the principles of the invention. The processingdescribed below is similar to that described above with respect to FIG.5 and uses the example of conversion tracking associated with ads thatare provided based on search queries. However, as discussed above, thetechniques described herein may be used in any system in whichparticular user actions are to be determined/identified.

Processing may begin with a client 110 accessing server 125 via network150 and receiving a UI for entering a search query. Assume that the userenters a search query and transmits the search query to server 125.Server 125 receives the search query, executes the search and generatesa list of search results.

Server 125 may also identify advertiser(s) based on the search query.For example, when server 125 receives a query, server 125 may determinewhether any advertiser has purchased advertising associated with one ormore terms in the search query. Server 125 may then identify theadvertiser(s) associated with the query and the particular adsassociated with the query. Server 125 may also transmit the searchresults and advertisement(s) to client 110 for display. Theadvertisements may include text and links to the respective advertisers'web sites.

Assume that a user, via client 110, performs an ad click on an adassociated with an advertiser that has enabled external conversiontracking. For example, assume that advertiser 130 has enabled conversiontracking for a particular ad provided by server 125 and that a user, viaclient 110, clicks on the ad associated with advertiser 130.

After client 110 selects the ad, an ad click request may be received asa result of the tracking URL in the ad (act 710). For example, asdiscussed above, advertiser 130 may include a tracking URL in ads forwhich conversion tracking is desired. When the ad is selected orclicked, the tracking URL sends the ad click to conversion tracker 145.

In an exemplary implementation, the click information field in the adclick may be decoded and the signature of the ad click may be validated(act 710). For example, the ad click information field may include asignature computed using a secret key along with other informationidentifying a particular ad. The secret key is not known by advertiser130 or other parties and is control by parties associated withconversion tracker 145. When conversion tracker 145 receives the adclick information, FE 310 (FIG. 3) may use the information identifyingthe ad and the secret key to compute the signature. If the computedsignature does not match the received signature, FE 310 determines thatthe information may have been tampered with and performs no additionalprocessing with respect to the ad click.

In some implementations consistent with the present invention, FE 310may also redirect the ad click request back to itself, as describedabove with respect to FIG. 5, to ensure that clicks by web crawlers arenot counted in the number of ad clicks associated with an advertiser.This may also prevent spamming by automated crawlers that lack thisredirect following feature.

FE 310 may also send an external ad click request to ad mixer 320. Acriteria ID may then be generated (act 720). For example, ad mixer 320may generate a criteria ID associated with the ad click by accessing oneor more databases that include ad related keywords/phrases andcorresponding criteria IDs. Each criteria ID may represent a keyword orphrase upon which advertisers bid. In other words, the criteria ID mapsthe keyword/phrase to a corresponding identifier, such as a numericalidentifier. In addition, multiple criteria IDs may exist for aparticular query. For example, suppose that the ad click informationindicates that a search query input to server 125 was “car.” The term“car” may be associated with the exact query “car,” as well as the word“car” used anywhere in a query. Advertisers may bid on both uses of theword “car” and therefore, multiple criteria 1D may exist for aparticular query.

Ad mixer 320 may identify the user query in the ad click informationreceived from FE 310 and search the database(s) for the criteria ID. Thedatabases(s) may also include ad group ID information. In this case, admixer 320 may restrict the search of the database(s) to the particularad group ID identified in the ad click information. In either case, admixer 320 may search the appropriate database(s) and identify a criteriaID that matches the particular query. If more than one criteria IDmatches the query, ad mixer 320 may select the first matching criteriaID.

In the event that no matching criteria ID is found, this may indicatethat the particular ad creative does not exist in the particular adgroup to which this creative belongs. In this case, ad mixer 320 may setthe criteria ID to a null value. This may also be done if no keywordsare included in the external ad click received from FE 310. Using a nullvalue as the criteria ID may be used to prevent conversion tracker 145from reporting on keywords that an advertiser has not bid on and/orconversion tracker 145 may report these clicks under an “unknown”keyword.

The ad click may also be stored in a log file (act 720). For example, admixer 320 may store the ad click information in a log file and mayinclude the criteria ID with the ad click information. In someimplementations, the external ad click information may be stored in aseparate log file from internal ad clicks. In other implementations, asingle log file for all ad clicks may be used.

Ad mixer 320 may also return a click response to FE 310. The clickresponse may also be augmented to include the criteria ID. Ad mixer 320may further identify the approximate time that the ad click occurred andgenerate an ad click time stamp (TS) in a manner similar to thatdescribed above with respect to FIG. 5. The TS may be a globally uniqueidentifier that includes the time that ad mixer 320 received the adclick request. The TS may also include other information, such as serverIP address/host processor ID, etc., to ensure that the TS is globallyunique. Ad mixer 320 may then generate a message including the TS, aconversion tracking ID and a Boolean indicating that a cookie should beset. Ad mixer 320 may forward this message to FE 310.

FE 310 receives the message from ad mixer 320 and determines that aconversion tracking cookie is to be set. A conversion tracking cookiemay then be generated (act 730). In an exemplary implementation, theconversion tracking cookie may include external click informationreceived with the ad click. The external click information may be usedin a manner similar to the click string that is included in the cookiefor internal clicks, as described above with respect to FIG. 5.

For example, the external click information may include informationidentifying the particular ad click(s) or action(s) performed by theuser. The conversion tracking cookie may also include the ad click TSand/or an expiration date associated with the cookie. The conversiontracking cookie may also include the conversion tracking ID ofadvertiser 130 and the criteria ID generated at act 720. The conversiontracking cookie may further include a flag indicating that theconversion is associated with an external conversion.

FE 310 may send the cookie to client 110 along with a messageinstructing client 110 to set the cookie in a manner similar to thatdescribed above with respect to FIG. 5. Client 110 may then set thecookie. Similar to the description above with respect to FIG. 5, thecookie may include the domain googleadservices.com, corresponding toserver 140, and a path that includes the conversion tracking IDassociated with advertiser 130. The conversion tracking ID may ensurethat the cookie will not be forwarded to conversion tracker 145 whenconversions associated with other advertisers are performed, asdescribed in more detail below.

FE 310 may also issue a redirect to advertiser 130's target destination.The target destination is the URL found in the original ad click request(e.g., the “url=parameter”). Client 110 may then access advertiser 130'starget destination page.

Assume that an act defined by advertiser 130 to be a conversion for thatparticular advertiser is performed (act 740). For example, client 110may perform a conversion with respect to advertiser 130. In this case,when client 110 performs the conversion, advertiser 130 downloads a postconversion page to client 110. As discussed above with respect to FIGS.4 and 6, the post conversion page includes the snippet provided toadvertiser 130. When client 110 receives and displays the postconversion page, client 110 executes the snippet. The snippet, asdescribed previously, may include the conversion tracking ID associatedwith advertiser 130. When the snippet is executed, client 110 sends theimage/text request to conversion tracker 145. This image/text requestmay include information indicating that a conversion occurred, theconversion tracking ID, a value, a label and a format for the image(assuming the request is an image request).

Client 110 may also compare the conversion tracking ID included in thesnippet with the conversion tracking ID in the cookie in a similarmanner as that described above with respect to FIG. 5 (act 750). Thatis, client 110 compares the conversion tracking ID included in thesnippet on advertiser 130's post conversion page with the conversiontracking ID included in the cookie. When the conversion tracking IDsmatch, client 110 transmits the cookie, along with the post conversionimage/text request, to conversion tracker 145 (act 760).

It should be understood that client 110 may receive a number of cookiesfrom conversion tracker 145 when client 110 performs ad clicksassociated with various conversion tracking enabled advertisers in amanner similar to that discussed above with respect to advertiser 130.Each time client 110 receives a post conversion snippet, client 110 maycompare the conversion tracking ID in the post conversion snippet withthe conversion tracking IDs included in the cookie path for each of thecookies stored on client 110. When the conversion tracking ID in thesnippet matches any one of the conversion tracking IDs in a cookie pathof a stored cookie, client 110 will send that cookie to conversiontracker 145.

When the conversion tracking ID does not match any of the conversiontracking IDs in a cookie path of a stored cookie, client 110 will notsend a cookie to conversion tracker 145. Reducing the number of timescookies are sent reduces the ability of conversion tracker 145 to trackuser actions. This may reduce privacy concerns of privacy sensitiveusers. In other implementations consistent with the present invention inwhich privacy concerns are not as great, client 110 may send cookiesassociated with conversion tracking enabled advertisers when noconversions for those advertisers have occurred. In this manner,conversion tracker 145 may identify more actions performed by users.

In some implementations, client 110 may also examine the TS, if a TS isincluded in the cookie, to determine whether to send the cookie toconversion tracker 145. For example, if client 110 determines that thecookie has expired, client 110 may not send the cookie. Conversiontracker 145, however, may also look at the TS, as described below.

Assuming that the conversion tracking ID in the snippet matches thecookie associated with advertiser 130 (and optionally, the TS indicatesthat the cookie has not expired), client 110 sends the cookie foradvertiser 130 and the post conversion image/text request to conversiontracker 145. A determination may then be made as to whether theconversion resulted from an advertisement (act 770).

For example, when conversion tracker 145 receives the image/textrequest, conversion tracker 145 may examine the request and determinewhether the cookie with the unique conversion tracking ID associatedwith advertiser 130 has been received with the image/text request or inclose time proximity to the image/text request. If conversion tracker145 does not find such a cookie included with the image/text request, FE310 may determine that the conversion did not result from anadvertisement. If FE 310 has received such a cookie with the image/textrequest (or in close time proximity with the image request), FE 310 maydetermine whether the cookie has expired based on the expiration date orTS information included with the cookie.

Assume that conversion tracker 145 determines that the conversionresulted from the ad and the cookie has not expired. In this case,information associated, with the conversion may be stored (act 780). Forexample, the cookie may include the external conversion flag thatindicates that the conversion represents an external conversion. Thecookie may also contain other data such as a value and type associatedwith the conversion. The cookie may further contain information thatidentifies the ad that was clicked on that resulted in the conversion.

FE 310 may also return an image/text to client 110 that states, forexample, “Thank you for shopping, some of your actions have been trackedfor the merchant/seller.” The image/text may also indicate the entityperforming the conversion tracking and/or may also identify the adprovider associated with the conversion. Client 110 may then paste thisimage/text into the post conversion page displayed on client 110.Providing this information in the post conversion page allows clients110 to be aware that some of their actions are being tracked. If FE 310determines that the conversion did not result from a paid ad or that thecookie associated with the paid ad had expired, conversion tracker 145may not store the conversion information. FE 310 may also return a blankimage or no image/text and client 110 will not receive any additionalmessage on the post conversion page.

FE 310 may also send a message to ad mixer 320 indicating that anexternal conversion occurred. Ad mixer 320 may log the conversion eventin an ad conversion log. In some implementations, the ad conversion logmay store conversion information for both internal and externalconversions. In other implementations, separate conversion logs may beused for internal and external logs. In each case, the ad conversion logmay include records, such as a number of conversion events, a valueassociated with each conversion event, a label associated with eachconversion event, a time associated with each conversion event, thesearch engine or ad network associated with each conversion event, etc.Log processing module 330 (FIG. 3) may access the ad conversion log anduse the ad conversion data to populate a conversion events database.Various reports may then be generated based on information in theconversion events database (act 790).

For example, log processing module 330 may generate a number ofstatistics for a particular advertiser, such as advertiser 130, withrespect to each particular ad network upon which the advertiserpurchases ads. One statistic may be a conversion ratio associated withan ad. The conversion ratio may be based on a number of conversions thatresulted from a displayed ad divided by the number of times thedisplayed ad was clicked at least once. By generating the conversionratio, both advertisers and search engine providers may determine theeffectiveness of the paid ads. Log processing module 330 may alsodetermine a total value of all conversions over a period of time for aparticular advertiser that resulted from ads from each ad provider, avalue per click, etc.

More detailed analysis of advertisements can also be made. For example,log processing module 330 may generate keyword reports for specific adgroups and ad campaigns. This report may show the conversion rate foreach PPC network versus the conversion rate for internal ads. Thisreport enables an advertiser to compare the effectiveness of ads onvarious networks. For example, an advertiser may wish to compare how thekeyword “fast cars” converts on network A relative to network B. Thecomparison may include conversion ratios for each network and otherpertinent information desired by the advertiser.

In addition, for non-PPC networks, such as those providing banner ads,the report may include the ability for an advertiser to specifychannels. A channel may be an advertiser-defined grouping of ads forreporting purposes. For example, some of the channels may include bannerads, annoying banner ads, super flash ads, etc. The reports may theninclude information indicating conversion information for each of thesechannels. In this manner, an advertiser may gain insight into theeffectiveness of various types of ads.

Advertisers may also interact with conversion tracker 145 to customizevarious reports based on their own particular needs. For example,advertisers may group their ads/ad creatives into any number of logicalchannels. Advertisers may also modify existing channels or create newchannels based on the particular reports that they would like toreceive. Log processing module 330 may also generate any number ofadditional reports based on their own particular needs.

FIGS. 8-17 illustrate exemplary UI screens that may be used inimplementations consistent with principles of the invention. Forexample, UI screens 800, 900 and 1000 illustrated in FIGS. 8-10,respectively, illustrate exemplary UI screens associated with externalconversion tracking. UI screens 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 and 1600illustrated in FIGS. 11-16, respectively, illustrate exemplary UIscreens associated with internal conversion tracking. UI screen 1700illustrated in FIG. 17 illustrates an exemplary UI screen that allows anadvertiser to select internal or external conversion tracking. It shouldbe understood that the UI screens in FIGS. 8-17 are exemplary only andmodifications to these screens, as well as other screens, may be used inimplementations consistent with the principles of the invention.

CONCLUSION

Implementations consistent with the principles of the invention mayprovide conversion tracking with respect to internal and external adproviders/networks.

The foregoing description of exemplary embodiments of the presentinvention provides illustration and description, but is not intended tobe exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed.Modifications and variations are possible in light of the aboveteachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. Forexample, while series of acts have been described with regard to FIGS.4-7, the order of the acts may be varied in other implementationsconsistent with the present invention. Moreover, non-dependent acts maybe implemented in parallel.

Also, implementations consistent with principles of the invention havebeen described with respect to setting cookies on advertiser specificpaths when an ad click is received. In other implementations, a cookiecould be set on an ad impression. In this manner, a “view through”conversion may be captured. A view through conversion may be defined asa conversion that occurred just by viewing the ad impression. Browsers,however, often limit the number of cookies that may be stored. Toovercome this potential problem, a single cookie may be set to beassociated with all the ad impressions.

In further implementations, a single cookie could be used for multipleadvertisers. Such a cookie could then be used to track ad clicksassociated with any one of the multiple advertisers. Conversion tracker145 could then determine which ad clicks were associated with whichparticular advertiser based on information transmitted with the cookie.In this manner, conversion tracker 145 would be able to determine aconversion ratio for each advertiser.

Further, in alternative implementations, instead of providing a trackingURL as described above, a snippet may be included on the landing pageassociated with each ad. The snippet may then be used to extract adnetwork information by looking at the browser's referrer. For example,the snippet would extract the ad network information and forward thatinformation to conversion tracker 145.

Implementations consistent with principles of the invention have alsobeen described as receiving an image/text request when a conversionoccurred. The image/text request has been described as being transmittedby a client device when it receives a particular web page from anadvertiser. In alternative implementations, the advertiser may transmitinformation to conversion tracker 145 indicating that a conversionoccurred. The conversion information may include optional value andlabel parameters. In this case, conversion tracker 145 may not need togenerate cookies to track the user's actions. That is, conversiontracker 145 may store an indication that an ad click for a paidadvertiser was received at a certain time. When conversion tracker 145receives a conversion indication from a particular advertiser,conversion tracker 145 may correlate that conversion information to thestored ad click information to determine whether the conversion resultedfrom an ad.

Lastly, it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art thataspects of the invention, as described above, may be implemented in manydifferent forms of software, firmware and hardware. The actual softwarecode or specialized control hardware used to implement aspectsconsistent with the principles of the invention is not limiting of thepresent invention. Thus, operation and behavior of the aspects weredescribed without reference to specific software code, it beingunderstood that one of ordinary skill in the art would be able to designsoftware and control hardware to implement the aspects based on thedescription herein. In addition, acts described as being performed byone server, such as server 120 or server 145, may also be performed byanother device. Further a single server or system may be used to performthe acts of both servers 120 and 145.

No element, act, or instruction used in the description of the presentapplication should be construed as critical or essential to theinvention unless explicitly described as such. Also, as used herein, thearticle “a” is intended to include one or more items. Where only oneitem is intended, the term “one” or similar language is used. Further,the phase “based on” is intended to mean “based, at least in part, on”unless explicitly stated otherwise.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for tracking user activity, the method comprising: receiving, at one or more processors of a first entity, a request for a document from a client device, the request comprising a keyword associated with the document and client parameters corresponding to the client device; determining, by the one or more processors, client cookie data using the client parameters, the client cookie data stored in a storage of the first entity; determining, by the one or more processors, document information based on the keyword associated with the document; identifying, by one or more processors, a plurality of content items corresponding to the keyword, the document information, and the cookie data, each of the plurality of content items having a bid value; selecting, by the one or more processors, a first content item of the identified plurality of content items based on a first bid value, the client cookie data, and the document information, wherein the first content item includes a link to another document; transmitting, by the one or more processors, the document with the first content item in response to the request, the first content item associated with the first bid value, the client cookie data, and the document information of the document, the first content item including a tracking identifier; and receiving, by the one or more processors, conversion data associated with the tracking identifier in response to a user interaction with the another document, the conversion data including a type of user action and data describing whether the user interaction is an internal conversion or an external conversion.
 2. The method of claim 1, the user interaction corresponding to at least one of a purchase, a registration, a sign-up, a page view or a download.
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: tracking conversion data associated with advertisements provided by a second entity, the second entity being different from the first entity; and comparing conversion data associated with the first entity with conversion data associated with the second entity.
 4. The method of claim 3 where the comparing conversion data comprises: comparing a conversion ratio for the first content item provided by the first entity with a conversion ratio for a second content item provided by the second entity.
 5. The method of claim 1 further comprising: receiving a request for conversion tracking from an advertiser, the request being associated with tracking conversions relating to the first content item provided by the first entity.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: providing software to be included on a web site of the advertiser in response to the request for conversion tracking, the software including at least one of a value field or a label field associated with a conversion.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: generating conversion data for the first content item provided by the first entity; generating a report based on the conversion data; and providing the report to an advertiser associated with the first content item.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the generating conversion data comprises: determining a number of times the first content item has been displayed or selected; determining a number of conversions resulting from the display or selection of the first content item; and generating a conversion ratio for the first content item based on the number of times the first content item has been displayed or selected and the number of conversions resulting from the display or selection.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining that a conversion resulted from the first content item based on receipt of the client cookie data.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the client cookie data includes a first identifier representing an advertiser and a second identifier associated with the first entity.
 11. The method of claim 10, where a third-party serving entity represents an external ad provider with respect to first serving entity with which the one or more processing devices are associated.
 12. The method of claim 1, further comprising: tracking conversion data associated with a second entity, the second entity not being affiliated with the first entity.
 13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: generating conversion data associated with the first entity and the second entity.
 14. The method of claim 13, further comprising: generating a report including the conversion data associated with the first entity and the second entity.
 15. A system for tracking user activity, comprising: one or more processors of a first entity; and one or more storage devices storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: receiving a request for a document from a client device, the request comprising a keyword associated with the document and client parameters corresponding to the client device; determine client cookie data using the client parameters, the client cookie data stored in a storage of the first entity; determine document information based on the keyword associated with the document; identifying a plurality of content items corresponding to the keyword, the document information, and the cookie data, each of the plurality of content having a bid value; selecting a first content item of the identified plurality of content items based on a first bid value, the client cookie data, and the document information, wherein the first content item includes a link to another document; transmitting the document with the first content item in response to the request, the first content item associated with the first bid value, the client cookie data, and the document information of the document, the first content item including a tracking identifier; and receiving conversion data associated with the tracking identifier in response to a user interaction with the another document, the conversion data including a type of user action and data describing whether the user interaction is an internal conversion or an external conversion.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the user interaction corresponds to at least one of a purchase, a registration, a sign-up, a page view or a download.
 17. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more storage devices stores instructions that cause the one or more processors to perform further operations comprising: tracking conversion data associated with advertisements provided by a second entity, the second entity being different from the first entity; and comparing conversion data associated with the first entity with conversion data associated with the second entity.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the one or more storage devices stores instructions that cause the one or more processors to perform further operations comprising: comparing a conversion ratio for the first content item provided by the first entity with a conversion ratio for a second content item provided by the second entity.
 19. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more storage devices stores instructions that cause the one or more processors to perform further operations comprising: receiving a request for conversion tracking from an advertiser, the request being associated with tracking conversions relating to the first content item provided by the first entity.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein the one or more storage devices stores instructions that cause the one or more processors to perform further operations comprising: providing software to be included on a web site of the advertiser in response to the request for conversion tracking, the software including at least one of a value field or a label field associated with a conversion. 